Live 9 Suite: The Sweetest Version Yet

Giving you no excuse not to make music, Ableton Live 9 Suite is overflowing with useful production tools and features designed to help you record, edit, sequence, process, mix, and DJ. At its core, this DAW-on-steroids is the same as the Intro and Standard versions of Live, except that it offers more of everything: more software instruments, more sound packs, and more audio effects. The music-production software even comes with Cycling '74's Max for Live built right in, so you can create and manipulate your own instruments and plug-ins without ever leaving Live.

All in the Box

Everything you need to record, arrange, edit, sequence, and finalize tracks is available in Live 9 Suite. It features Ableton's unique Session View workspace, unlimited multitrack recording of audio and MIDI at up to 192 kHz/32-bit resolution, support for an unlimited number of Scenes, 12 Send and Return tracks, 256 audio inputs, and 256 audio output channels. When it comes to creating professional-sounding recordings, performing live, making loops, and honing your DJ skills, there's no shortage of tools to get the job done.

Intuitive Workspace and Toolkit

Use Session View to capture song ideas, make loops, and assemble complete tracks by simply dragging and dropping or rearranging your audio. Session View also simplifies automation, memorizing parameters changes and knob/fader movements, and making it super easy to set up a mix.

Within Live, it's also easy to make your own Racks, which help organize your instruments and effects into a single device. You can map each of the eight Macro knobs to any number of parameters in a Rack, and get customized controls that make sense to you.

In addition, a wealth of editing tools with unlimited undo, audio slicing and dicing tools, mastering tools, MIDI sequencing, and real-time time-stretching and warping options allow you to polish your music with professional results. As a bonus for digital DJs, Live 9 Suite also allows video import/export and integration with Serato Scratch Live.

Exhaustive Set of Built-In Sounds, Loops, Kits, and Synths

Live 9 Suite is packed with 9 instruments, 390 drum kits, 25 sound packs, 4,000 loops, VST and Audio Unit support, and a large selection of Devices for Max for Live. This version of Live includes more audio content than Live Intro and Standard combined, giving you a ton of sounds and instruments to get you started on your musical journey.

With such a complete set of virtual instruments on hand, you have all the bases covered for making music in any genre. You get everything from analog synthesizer emulations, classic electric pianos, and soft synths with frequency modulation and subtractive synthesis to physically modeled strings, drums, and samplers. Use the soft instruments to make beats, melodies, soundscapes, loops -- you name it. And with Live's External Instrument and External Audio Effect devices, you can use your external hardware synthesizers or effects units as if they were plug-ins.

Too Many Drums and Sounds to Name

Need drums and percussion? Live 9 Suite supplies nearly 400 construction kit-style drum kits, which is way more than you'll probably ever use. Thousands of loops and 25 unique sound packs provide even more audio content spanning from brass and orchestral sounds to experimental sound design.

Make Your Own Plug-ins in Max for Live

If want to bypass Ableton's ready-made content and add some original sounds and instruments to your tracks instead, simply dive in to Max for Live. In this software environment, you can click and drag icons (audio components) and virtual patches to generate your own instruments and effects to use within Live. Over a dozen Max for Live devices are included with the suite.

Driven by Effects

A comprehensive collection of 40 studio-quality audio and MIDI effects are included as well, providing everything from basic to advanced effects and cool guitar amp simulations, plus useful MIDI effects such as a chord generator and arpeggiator.

VST and Audio Units

More online

Ableton's Pack store allows you to browse and download instruments and patches. Tools that understand audio, instead of just playing it. Live can convert harmony, melody and beats from recordings to MIDI. Live can take the notes from audio files and transform them directly into notes in a MIDI track. This lets you extract harmony, melody or drums from an existing recording or one of your own. Even create melodies and rhythms using solo instruments or your own voice. Sampling just got much bigger. Whatever you want it to be. Get a wealth of devices, and the ability to make your own, with Max for Live - now included in Suite. Max for Live, based on Cycling 74's Max 6, is included with Live 9 Suite. Max for Live is an ever-growing collection of inspiring synths, effects and customizations to Live itself, as well as a toolkit for building your own. Live 9 Suite also comes with a collection of their favorite devices from Max for Live's lively community of artists and creators.

zZounds has verified that this customer bought this product from us.
"Ableton Live 9 is exceptionally cool"

Sound:
I can't complain about the sound quality. There are those that believe a specific DAW has a specific "sound" to it, no differently than an API, SSL, or Neve desk has a specific sound to them. I guess I can't disagree. Does the Glue compressor in Ableton "sound" like an SSL master bus compressor? I guess so, considering that's what it's modeled after.
Feature:
They cover all of the bases, and given the "open" architecture of being able to use different kinds of sounds with things like Simpler, Sampler, Impulse, and Drum Racks, you'd be hard-pressed to exhaust your options. Analog and Operator are okay, but they're ancillary to my use of the Spectrasonics VST plug-ins.
Ease of Use:
This is what really sold me on the product. I'm currently reading the reference manual cover-to-cover just so I can say to myself that I've done it, and know my options, but it's not really necessary. One could merely go over the built-in tutorials, and go from there. It's really about Ableton Live's workflow. That's what really sets this product apart from the majority of the options in the market.
Quality:
N/A
Value:
Pretty good considering the size of the library that's included in the Suite. The only product I've ever used that beats it from a "bang for the buck" standpoint would be Logic.
Manufacturer Support:
Getting through to them can be sometimes a bit challenging, considering that they're in Berlin. The phone lines are frequently busy, but they do have an e-mail contact option if you're not in a hurry. When you do get through to them, their support personnel are professional, and knowledgeable.
The Wow Factor:
So far, I'm really enjoying it. What really makes the product unique is the integration between the Ableton Live Suite, and the push MIDI controller. I wanted an integrated solution that was highly mobile. The only disappointment I've found is the inability to browse "clips" with the push. I found that to be fairly short-sighted on Ableton's part. How do you create a DAW that is entirely clip based, create an integrated hardware option like push, but no ability to browse clips with it? Really??!!!!???
Overall:
I've pretty much tried them all. ProTools, Reason, Ableton, Logic, Cubase. I was never a big fan of Cubase, and since Logic is strictly on the Mac platform, that got nixed. ProTools may be the "industry standard", but unless you absolutely need to have SMPTE timecode, I don't see why one wouldn't evaluate other options.

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zZounds has verified that this customer bought this product from us.
"It's Live!"

Overall:
What to say that you probably don't know. It's a DAW, and it works great. I can jam with myself very quickly and the new Max4Live plugins are great.I use it to write, arrange, perform (both by myself and with a band) and just play.I plan on adding Push to my setup soon to streamline the process even more.Worth every penny.

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